Stalling install?

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Stalling install?
started by: KnitChick1979

Posted by KnitChick1979 on Nov. 10 2007,04:33

Hello!

I am trying to install DSL on an older laptop, a Fujitsu built in 1997. I was having troubles getting it to boot from CD (even though the BIOS was set with the CD before the hard drive), so I went and wiped the factory Windows install from the hard drive.

Now, when I put in the DSL CD I created, it does boot, it shows me all kinds of messages, mostly sounding positive and correct, but then it changes to a gray screen with a cursor on it. The first time it stayed on the gray screen for a while, then returned to the screen listing all the stuff as it booted. I turned it off for a bit then tried again. Same messages but then the gray screen stayed up for like fifteen minutes before I gave up and shut down for the evening. Oh and this was dsl-3.4.5-syslinux.iso I made the CD from.

I pulled out my digital camera, this is the gray screen I got:

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>

And this is part of the messages I was getting:

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>

I took a video of the computer as it booted, it's at < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHghaYH9i08 >

And there's more shots of the messages at < http://www.flickr.com/photos/knitchick1979/sets/72157603049145823/ >

So, what can I do to get it to actually go into the OS??

Thanks in advance!!

~MJ~

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 10 2007,04:59

It's not installing anything at this stage.

Looks like you have a case of low memory.
I'm guessing you have 16mb of RAM? Would be helpful to post system specs, etc.

You can boot with certain cheatcodes (did you use any?) that may help... using "lowram" and/or "mem=16M" and/or "failsafe" ones may be of interest.

Posted by KnitChick1979 on Nov. 10 2007,05:33

I have to look, I don't remember what the memory specs were but it was slightly more than the bare minimum for running Windows 95.

How exactly do I use those cheatcodes? That lowram one sounds like it might work...

Posted by roberts on Nov. 10 2007,06:24

I don't think that you will be happy running DSL in only 16MB of memory.
Maybe a direct hard drive install would help.
But still would be very slow. I find a minimum of 32MB is needed.

Anyway, you can boot into a full desktop in only 16MB. Here's how:
At the very first boot prompt type

boot: lowram mem=16M vga=normal legacy

Your system might need a different vga code. At that first boot prompt you can press F2 and/or F3 to see the boot options.

Posted by KnitChick1979 on Nov. 11 2007,23:22

Thanks, roberts, I'll try those codes a bit later, see if that helps. But I did buy some memory on eBay, hopefully that'll help too!

I forgot how underpowered this laptop was til I went to look up the specs and see what kind of memory it needed.